ecosystem

Etymology

It is a compound from English eco- + system.^[2][3][4][5] Etymonline suggests that it was coined by the English ecologist Sir Arthur George Tansley (1871–1955),^[6] and the OED's first example is from Tansley's article in the journal Ecology in 1935.^[2] The first element is taken from ecology,^[2][4] which goes back to German Oecologie, coined by Ernst Haeckel in 1866 from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos, “house, dwelling”).^[2][6] System comes through Late Latin systema from Ancient Greek σύστημα (sústēma, “an organized whole”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A biological system made up of all the organisms living in a particular physical environment, interacting with it and with each other: 1935, in A. G. Tansley's article in Ecology.^[2][7] Merriam-Webster and Etymonline give the same year,^[3][6] and Dictionary.com 1930–35.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The OED notes that formations with eco- were at first mostly confined to specialist scientific language, and became much more common later in the century;^[2] Etymonline dates eco- as a free word-forming element referring to the environment to 1969.^[6] Ecosystem itself is now also used in an extended sense of any complex network of interacting parts, such as a commercial or technological system.^[2]

Timeline

• 1866 – Oecologie coined by Haeckel.^[2]
• 1935 – a community of organisms and its physical environment, in Tansley's article.^[2][3][6]
• 1969 – Etymonline's date for eco- as a free element referring to the environment.^[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. (ecology) A community of living organisms together with the non-living environment they live in, considered as a system of interactions: the coral reef ecosystem.
2. A complex network of interconnected parts, people or businesses, likened to a biological ecosystem: the city's start-up ecosystem.

Related words

• ecology
• economy
• system
• biosphere
• habitat

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)